Innovate While You Integrate

5 Proven Steps to Reduce Costs & Increase Revenue with Buyers

Suppliers: you want the capability to take on larger orders and more buyers. But how do you scale your business while juggling the tasks of keeping products in stock, and complying with your customers variable business rules? Every year, buyer’s rules become more demanding and the penalties become more severe.

This year alone, Wal-Mart and Target announced updates to their compliance rules and penalties: Wal-Mart is cutting the window for deliveries to within 1 to 2 days and Target plans to hike chargebacks for late deliveries and labeling inaccuracies to fines of up to $10,000. In a 2016 B2Bi study conducted by the University of Tennessee, 69% of organizations interviewed said that they were able to more efficiently respond to changes in their customer’s requirements when using B2Bi Managed Services.

5 Steps to Reduce Costs & Increase Revenue with Buyers

Step 1: Automate your Supply-Chain

For years’ business have operated using spreadsheets. Lists of clients, KPI’s, sales data, inventory data sitting on a personal computer in the back office. This may have worked 10 years ago, but the pressures to operate and react instantaneously to customer demands require a more real time and automated environment.

There are three inherent problems with spreadsheets to operate your supply chain:

Spreadsheets lack the capacity necessary to track large inventories and buyer demands

Spreadsheets increase the risk for human error and chargebacks

Spreadsheets are inefficient at keeping track of ERP data points

An automated supply-chain system solves these problems: Such as managing complex buyer driven business rules, ensuring compliance; tracking inventory, sales, shipping and financial operations; and collecting data every step of the way to the business make better informed decisions.

94% of organizations interviewed in the same B2Bi study saw a significant improvement in their electronic connectivity capabilities after using B2Bi managed services.

However, an automated supply chain is only as good as the data that feeds it. This leads us to Step 2.

Step 2: Leverage Internal & External Data

Your business works with two types of data: internal data and external data.

Internal data is any metric or process that comes from within your operation: your sales, inventory, and rules. External data is any metric or information that comes from outside your operation: purchase orders, SKUs, buyer rules, and payments.

Your ERP or back-office system will provide your team with insight into your internal data, much of which you share with buyers, such as your item master file; however, as you increase or reduce product lines and add or delete SKUs, what reconciliation processes or visibility are in place to ensure your product data is consistent with that of your customers?

In this example, when external and internal data are asynchronous, you run the risk of receiving POs for out-of-stock items, inaccurate pricing and outdated item numbers.

Suddenly, your automated supply chain screeches to a halt, and reverts back to the manual mode of email and phone calls.

This challenge is compounded as you adapt to an ever-evolving omni-channel world in which inventory must also be synchronized across your e-commerce website and those of your buyers.

When internal and external data is synchronized, you can receive a purchase order, make a shipment, complete an invoice, and receive a payment, and you will know that your supply-chain will be automatically updated and include data surrounding any and all processes.

Create a shared data and reporting repository for key stakeholders to proactively monitor and take action when necessary.

With a self-governing approach to customer compliance, you will increase the likelihood of fulfilling orders on time and in compliance. You will also be seen as a trustworthy supplier with the capacity to fulfil large orders. When you consistently deliver what’s expected, how it’s expected, on-time, you will attract more buyers and larger contracts.

When you have an opportunity to automate your accounts receivable process with customers, you need to take advantage of it. Companies that reduce Days Sales Outstanding can reinvest the cash back into the business.

1. Identify customers that are willing to participate in B2B integration.

Step 5: Use Sales Data to strengthen relationship with buyers

The world’s largest buyers, such as Target and Walmart, prefer to work with suppliers that help them avoid excess inventory; Target's stores nationwide in 2015 had 8 to 9 billion items on store floors, in transit or in warehouses at any given time. This enormous volume of product flow puts more pressure than ever on you to understand end consumer demands: popular products, seasonal trends, niche variables related to specific SKUs, etc.

With a digital archive of past sales data, you can forecast the fulfillment needs of buyers to consistently deliver the products that end consumers purchase, making the overall supply-chain as effective as possible.

You are half of the supply chain relationship; you have a stake in its success and an interest in generating revenue. Your buyers want to guarantee their customers will find what they are looking for without the cost of carrying extra inventory; you want to make sure you can anticipate and fulfill their orders promptly. This means setting up a system that can automate compliance demands and analyze the needs of end consumers to create a strong relationship with buyers that will flourish in the face of a vast, volatile market.

Founded in 2000, DiCentral is a leading global provider of EDI and supply chain solutions headquartered in Houston, Texas, with 11 offices worldwide supporting customers across multiple sectors in over 27 countries.

From small businesses to multi-national enterprises, DiCentral delivers the tools and expertise that enable a competitive edge that scales.